The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum (IPHF) has announced it was selected as one of the arts organisations awarded a grant from The PNC Foundation through the PNC Arts Alive initiative in 2014. PNC Arts Alive is a two-year, $1 million initiative from The PNC Foundation that supports visual and performing arts groups with the goal of increasing arts access and engagement in new and innovative ways. The grant was awarded in support of the IPHF’s International Photography Collaborative – “View Through a Lens” – an arts and cultural exchange programme between St. Louis, Missouri and Nanjing, China.

IPHF Press Release

PNC ARTS ALIVE INITIATIVE NAMES THE INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM AS A 2014 GRANTEE

St. Louis (May 29, 2014) – The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum (IPHF) is a proud to announce they were selected as one of the St. Louis area arts organizations awarded a prestigious grant from The PNC Foundation through the PNC Arts Alive initiative in 2014.

PNC Arts Alive is a two-year, $1 million initiative from The PNC Foundation that supports visual and performing arts groups with the goal of increasing arts access and engagement in new and innovative ways.

This prestigious grant award was given to only 10 arts organizations in the Greater St. Louis area (out of 36 applicants) that were selected for bold thinking around increasing arts access and engagement.

The grant was awarded in support of the IPHF’s International Photography Collaborative – “View Through a Lens” – an arts and cultural exchange program between St. Louis, Missouri and Nanjing, China.

“View Through a Lens” will provide opportunities to amateur and professional photographers to express their view of the world through images. A speaker series, workshops, family days, online photo competition and sister city project with Nanjing, China will provide the conduit for this creative process. The highlight will be photography's first inclusion in the Federation of the Arts Annual meeting in Nanjing, China.

The “View Through a Lens” project came about through the efforts of IPHF board member Tim Hermann, who lives most of the year in Shenzhen, China, near Hong Kong. It was through Tim’s urging to IPHF and the St. Louis Sister Cities organization that led to an investigation of a cultural outreach to China. Meetings have been held with the St. Louis World Trade Center and the Nanjing office of Sister Cities, and Mr. Herman funded a fact-finding mission for IPHF Executive Director John Nagel in February 2014, which resulted in the Nanjing Federation of the Arts inviting John to be a keynote speaker at their May Arts Festival.

Nagel was invited to bring up to eight photographers to the festival with food, lodging and local transportation funded by the Nanjing Federation. A reciprocal feature of the “View Through a Lens” program will bring eight Nanjing photographers to St. Louis in 2015 with the same accommodations.

The St. Louis delegation of eight photographers and members of IPHF who traveled with John Nagel to attend the Nanjing Arts Festival include Rita Chu, Dan Dreyfus, Stewart Halperin, David Hanlon, Don McKenna, Jennifer Silverberg and Richard Sprengeler.

For more information on PNC Arts Alive program and the 2014 grant recipients, visit http://www.pncartsalive.com. And to learn more about the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum and the “View Through a Lens” arts and cultural exchange program, please contact Executive Director John Nagel at John.Nagel@iphf.org or (314) 535-1999.

About The PNC Foundation

The PNC Foundation, which receives its principal funding from The PNC Financial

Services Group (NYSE:PNC), actively supports organizations that provide services for the

benefit of communities in which it has a significant presence. The foundation focuses its

philanthropic mission on early childhood education and community and economic development, this includes the arts and culture.

For more information, visit www.pncartsalive.com. Follow @PNCNews on Twitter for breaking news, updates and announcements from PNC.

About IPHF

The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum is the only non-profit organization in the world whose purpose is to celebrate the achievements of the inventors, pioneers, and pivotal artists throughout the history of photography.

The IPHF has preserved the art of photography and its contribution to modern civilization since 1965, and is the proud home to over 6,000 historical cameras and 30,000 images. The IPHF is located in the Grand Center Arts District in St. Louis, Missouri. For more information, please visit www.iphf.org.